72000 Cyber Crime last year reported in india : Ravi Shankar Prasad

India has witnessed a massive surge in cyber crime incidents in about 10 years — from just 23 in 2004 to 72,000 last year, said telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“In the year 2004, we had only 23 incidents (of cyber crime). Last year we had about 72,000 incidents. Media reports show as to how cyber attacks are done to completely immobilize the financial infrastructure, information infrastructure,” Prasad said at cyber security event organized by The Observer Research Foundation and industry body Ficci.

As per government’s cyber security arm Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In) 62,189 cyber security incidents were reported in just the first 5 months this year.

Attackers compromise computer systems located in different parts of the world and use masquerading techniques and hidden servers making it difficult to trace them.

Prasad expressed concern over the absence of technical and legal infrastructure to catch cyber criminals, as also the lack of mechanism to check the unhindered growth of network of infected computer systems and flow of global information to check cyber crimes.

Facebook hires two IIIT Allahabad boys for Rs 60 lakh

ALLAHABAD: IT majors, including popular social networking sites Facebook and Google, refused to turn up for recruitment at country's premium technical institutes like IITs this year as per reports.

The news may sound disappointing for some but on the contrary, the silver lining is that the same firms have chosen to pick their poor cousins from National Institute of Technology (NITs), offering them handsome pay package of around Rs 1 crore per annum.
Two students of the country's premium Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-A), have bagged lucrative job offers of Rs 60 lakh per annum from Facebook, while another student has been chosen as student ambassador of top notch IT firm Google.
IIIT-A director M D Tiwari said that Ankit Gupta and Yogesh Sharma, both final year students of BTech, have been recruited by Facebook while their batchmate Divanshu Garg has been chosen as the Google student ambassador to represent Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad for the upcoming academic year.
A statement issued by Sunil Rao, country head, Outreach Programs, Google India Pvt Ltd, stated that unprecedented response and excitement was witnessed to the Google Student Ambassador programme, with over 1,750 candidates from more than 100 towns and cities across India vying for GSA title.

Tiwari said that various companies visited the campus of IIIT-Allahabad during the session of 2012-2013. Hundred per cent of BTech students have been placed by nearly dozen of companies with more than 70% of the students getting starting package of Rs 5.5 lakh per annum and the highest package ranging to Rs 60 lakh pa.

India Signs Agreement with UK On Co-Operation in Fighting Cybercrime

While hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games, India watched as online tickets suddenly vanished. But no funds were received, the stadiums were empty and shut-out fans were furious.

The website's cyber security had been breached, leading to losses of around Rs. 1.5 billion ($27.3m). "Somebody played a dirty trick. It was a situation nobody had expertise in handling back then. It cost the organisers a huge loss," National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon told Khabar South Asia.

This month, India signed its first ever agreement with a foreign country – United Kingdom – on co-operation in fighting cybercrime. It was inked on November 9th by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and his British counterpart, William Hague.

The accord, authorities hope, will not only help prevent hacker exploits of the sort that marred the 2010 Games, but will also guard against the dangers posed by internet-savvy terrorists.

"The cyber-security dialogue will seek to reduce the risk of threats from cyberspace to international security and strengthen the bilateral co-operation in tackling cybercrime," the ministers said in a joint statement issued at the end of the meeting.

At the same time, both sides affirmed their commitment to the "core principles of liberty, transparency, freedom of expression and the rule of law" in cyberspace.

According to Deputy National Security Advisor Vijay Latha Reddy, India sees the agreement as an initial step in a longer-term strategy.

cartoonist arrest over cybercrime charges on him

Award-winning political cartoonist and anti-corruption and Internet freedom crusader Aseem Trivedi (25) was remanded in police custody till September 16 by a holiday court in Bandra on Sunday. He was arrested on Saturday night on charges of sedition, cybercrime, and insulting the national flag, Parliament and the Constitution through his work.

Additional police commissioner (west region) Vishwas Nangre Patil told The Hindu that the complaint against Mr. Trivedi was filed after the India Against Corruption (IAC) agitation at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) grounds at Bandra Kurla Complex, which started on December 27.

Mr. Trivedi’s ‘Cartoons Against Corruption’ website was banned by the Mumbai police then. Months later, a non-bailable warrant was issued against him. On August 30, a team of the Mumbai Police went to his home at Shuklaganj in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district to execute the warrant, but found he was out of station. The team then questioned Mr. Trivedi’s father, Ashok, for four hours. Later, it asked the Shuklaganj police to speak to Mr. Trivedi and ask him to surrender in Mumbai.

More Indian Access Internet Via Mobiles than Desktop

India’s fast-growing mobile Internet usage has actually surpassed the country’s use of the fixed-line Web.

According to Internet measurement firm StatCounter’s data, during August 2012, Web access in India via mobile accounted for 51.63%, while that from desktop devices made up the remaining 48.37%.

One of the key reasons for the phenomenal growth of mobile Internet usage is the lower overhead involved in owning a mobile than a computing device.

What has further fuelled the growth of the mobile Internet in India is the plethora of affordable mobile phones coupled with cheap Internet plans, which can cost as little as Rs 149 for 8 GB per month. Also, device-agnostic Web browsers such as Opera Mini deliver the best Web surfing experience even on a basic GPRS-enabled phone.

The growing smartphone market, too, has significantly contributed to this trend. However, India’s smartphone penetration continues to be low, even within the APAC region. According to IDC’s latest survey of the top five markets for smartphone shipments, which includes China, the US, India, Brazil and the UK, India is poised to stand fourth in this year’s ranking, at 2.5%. The report further indicated that the Indian market seems to have great potential for the future with the introduction of low-end smartphones priced around $100.

While India’s mobile Internet usage has surpassed desktop Web access, India’s Internet penetration rate continues to remain below 10%. A lack of awareness of the benefits of Internet-enabled devices plays a large role in this divide.

The StatCounter figures quoted here are based on data compiled from over 15 billion page views, so they might not be entirely accurate. They do, however, indicate the general trend. Additionally, it is noteworthy that Indian telcos, despite regulatory and infrastructure hurdles, have a done a commendable job in terms of providing connectivity in every corner of the country.

A few years ago, a national daily carried a report about a village that had mobile network coverage but no electricity. Mobile users had to travel for kilometres to a nearby town to recharge their phones. This is still relevant, as the majority of the country grapples with erratic electricity supply.

Yes, there is still a long way to go before India’s Internet penetration rate can match that of developed nations or even China’s, but we are moving in the right direction.Source-cxotoday

Govt.Increases SMS Limit 20 Per Day

The government today increased the SMS limit per day from five to 20 with immediate effect, according to a notification issued by the Ministry of Communication. From today, the mobile customers in the country, which is more than 930 million, can send a maximum to 20 SMS-es in one go and more than 25 KB of data through mobile phones.

Mobile users were restricted to sending only 5 SMS-es per day from last Saturday to check spread of rumours, which fuelled panic among people from the North-East.

"We have banned bulk SMS-es and MMS-es for 15 days," Union Home Secretary RK Singh had said last week.

According to the government, since the clashes in Assam, misleading information and hate messages were being spread through SMS-es and MMS-es that led to panic among the people from the North-East. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter were also reportedly used to circulate morphed images.

Along with the restrictions on SMSes and MMS-es, hundreds of web pages have been banned by the government since last week.  Source-NDTV

India’s web culture is all about Facebook, social networking

ComScore, has just released some interesting data on how India’s digital citizens are spending time online. The report states that  social networking accounted for 25.2 percent of all time spent online in June. The biggest beneficiary of the social networking boom in India is, of course, Facebook.

The report also states that Indians spend nearly 1 out 4 minutes online indulging in social networking, amounting to a significant 25.2 percent of total time spent online.

Other content that occupies a significant amount of time for Indians is

• Entertainment sites – accounting for 10 percent of minutes (up 1.2 percentage points from the previous year).

• Portals accounted for 8.8 percent of total minutes.

• Time spent on Retail sites grew 0.5 points in the past year to a total of 2.0 percent of total minutes.

So which are the top used sites by Indians?

Google and other sites run by the search-engine ranked as the top destination in June 2012 reaching nearly 95 percent of the online population, or roughly 57.8 million people aged 15 and older

Facebook came in second followed with 50.9 million visitors (83.4 percent reach),

Yahoo! Sites (65.5 percent reach) and Microsoft Sites (48.1 percent reach) are next on the list.

So what does this web survey reveal about India?

The first is the tremendous rise of social networking among Indians. The second is of course the rise of Facebook. All of this is particularly noteworthy data, coming as it does at a time when the government is blaming social media aiding in the spread of rumours against North-eastern people, which led to a mass exodus of these people from various South Indian cities.

The government has alleged that Facebook, YouTube, etc were used to upload inflammatory content that led to the mass hysteria. The latest exodus is also being used by the government to bolster its argument that social networking sites ought to pre-screen content before it is uploaded.

Facebook and YouTube have added that the content was uploaded from Pakistan and have admitted that it was indeed incendiary in nature.

There’s no doubt that censorship of the web will now become a hotly contested issue with the government using the North-east as a classic example of how social media was misused.

But the larger question is that whether Indians who are evidently addicted to social networking would be okay with their online rights being curbed. Most would be uncomfortable with any sort of censorship. As far as users are concerned, the government seems to be displaying a blithe ignorance of how effective and useful social media can be.

In case of bomb attacks and accidents,  people very often turn to social media such as Twitter or Facebook,  to get more information or even reach out to those who have been affected. In July 2011 in Mumbai for instance, the Indian Twitter community took it upon themselves to offer rides and other assistance to those stranded as a result of a series of bomb explosions in the city.

Social media has also become a very effective tool of criticising the government.

For India’s online citizens, who are only over a  100 million or so in number, the battles are going to get tougher with the government arguing for more control. There’s no doubt that as far as social media concerned nobody is willing to budge an inch, neither the users nor the government.

Source-Firstpost

Google complaint against Noida clone

Google India on Monday approached the city cyber crime cell to file a complaint against a Noida-based company for forgery and trademark violation, police said.   According to the complaint, Royal E-Kutir has duped several investors through its Sector 10-based unit named
'Google Enterprises Private Limited', which also bears the Google logo.

"Google had sent a legal notice to the firm on September 19, 2011, asking the firm to remove 'Google' from the company's name and stop using their logo. The company had agreed on removing the logo but refused to change the name. Later, in October that year, Google received several complaints that the company was duping investors using brand names such as Google and Tata," said Triveni Singh, head of the Noida cyber crime cell.

'Youth For Nation' to hold rally against graft, cyber crime

MANGALORE: Youth in the state vows to fight against corruption and cyber crime. The Karnataka branch of the Youth For Nation (YFN) will hold a state-level rally to create awareness among youth and to protest against the menaces.

YFN will hold 'Prathignya Yathre' to fight against the menace of corruption and cyber crimes in the state from August 4 to 9. The rally will start from Freedom Park in Bangalore on August 4 and reach Mangalore on August 7. Later, the rally will proceed through Puttur, Madikeri, Mysore and conclude at Mandya on August 9.YFN Mangalore chief secretary Ashwath Hegde told TOI that thousands of people in the state, who are suffering from rampant corruption, are expected to attend the rally. "Youth are ready to take all the possible steps to eliminate modern Ravana. Our nation is suffering from two major illnesses - corruption and cyber crimes. YFN invites young people to join the crusade with hearty involvement and also requests to fight the battle against the menace," he said.

Memorandum seeking solutions to the issues will be handed sent to chief minister Jagadish Shettar, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pranab Mukherjee, Hegde said adding: "this rally is just the beginning of a long nation-wide battle against corruption as well as cyber crimes and all nationalistic people are invited to perform their 'Rashtra Dharma' by participating in the fight. Source-TOI 

Vinobha K T, TNN Aug 4, 2012, 12.52PM IST 

Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite Android tab to make India debut soon

New Delhi: Chinese handset manufacturer, Huawei has announced the launch of its low-cost Android tablet Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite in India.

The official price of the tablet has not yet been confirmed but the gadget market is speculating that it would compare with Google Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0.

Key Features

Powered by Android 4.0 and is expected to upgrade to Android jelly bean 4.1

1.2GHz processor with 1GB RAM

Has 7" WSVGA Capacitive Multitouch screen with a 7 inch display and a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution

Rear 3.2Mp, Front 0.3Mp camera for high definition recording

4100mAh battery

Micro USB 2.0, Bluetooth 3.0, b/g/n wireless


Last Updated: Saturday, July 28, 2012, 11:10 


Source-Zeebiz Bureau